


red spider lily

by cephea



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 22:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18127271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cephea/pseuds/cephea
Summary: they rest beside the river, scarlet and secretive, waiting for the death they'll bloom out of until they're lush with life. evocative and impartial, they wait, and they wait, and they wait, until the living die and the dead live, and the fields glitter with petals like blood.(sarada gets help ridding herself of undesired guests from the pure land when her summer prayers go awry. canon-compliant. third person pov.)





	red spider lily

**Author's Note:**

> one time i was joking around with a friend that it wasn't fair that madara got to haunt sasuke in the sharingan gag manga, but sarada couldn't get help bearing the grief and trauma of a genocide her own father won't tell her about. i ended up churning this out completely by accident when i was absolutely supposed to be working on other things, but here we are! i do actually have a canon-compliant way this could be a real thing, though i know it's not a stylistic decision kishimoto or kodachi would make both because they are cowards who won't prioritize female characters and because they refuse to see through the implications of their narrative decisions to the natural and logical conclusions.
> 
> my health isn't great, so i'm not sure when next i'll be able to share anything, and i'm not sure if my next work will be naruto or daiya, but i'm exceeding appreciative and joyful over every person who continues to read my work. much love and well wishes!

  
  
  
  
  


 

\- - - - - - -

 

Every year, when the deep heat came pressing down into their bones, Sarada and her mother would pay their respects. Lavishly prepared fruits and vegetables, noodles fried thick with oil and salt, rice still aromatic with vinegar rolled tightly with seaweed; they’d bring out old platters hand-painted with uchiwa and pretend not to see the glaze chipping off. While Sarada brewed a blend of tea they’d never dare to afford on any other day, her mother would leave incense out on the altar until the room felt full with it, and Sarada’s eyes would go heavy with exhaustion.

It’s the only time of year that Sakura and Sarada ever play dress up at being real Uchiha. No matter how many times her mother says she’s her father’s daughter every time she so much as blinks, they have little in the way to show for it, and even less in the way of proof. Blinks, she’d said, not breathes, and ever since Sarada had dug around in the library archives long enough to know that being an Uchiha was supposed to _mean_ something, she’d almost wished they didn’t have this, either.

This year, Sakura is unable to leave the hospital. Sarada wouldn’t want her to; knowing that the patients left in her mother’s emergency care are often those resting between life and death, she wouldn’t even dream to ask. That doesn’t make her any more eager to do it alone.

 _It’d be rude to skip,_ Sarada thinks irritably, slicing eggplant and tomato into flower petals and painstakingly blooming them. The juice that squeezes out leaves her hands feeling sticky no matter how many times she scrubs them. Her stomach growls.

She lights the lantern for the front door with an exhausted huff and slides the seasonal bouquet she’d picked up from Auntie Ino’s onto the altar. The last thing to do is light the incense, and on instinct from so many days of regular prayer, Sarada places it exactly where it’s supposed to go.

All hell breaks loose.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

 _Literally,_ Sarada thinks a little desperately, bodily throwing herself off the balcony ledge of the apartment complex and bursting onto the city’s skyline, _all of Hell has_ literally _broken loose._

From the moment she’d clapped her hands together, the house had been packed to the seams with the sunken, miserable faces of people she didn’t know. Ghosts of family, she’d guessed, realizing why her mother had always left the display slightly out of place.

 _And of course,_ she thinks, vaulting past the bloody atmosphere of the police complex, the main streets a throng of dark hair milling about listlessly, _of course it’s a terrible idea to do this kind of ceremony in a shinobi village!_

Someone with no eyes and softly curled hair catches up to her with very little effort, and dread creeps up her spine at the idea that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of spirits of family members her father has not so much as whispered to her about. She’s barely 14, and only _just_ still allowed to be a genin; she can’t call her mother for help, can’t hide at home, and doesn’t have the heart to bother anyone else during one of the only times of the year families regularly come together.

But she doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to be here.

“Please,” she croaks out at him, and his face goes slack with shock. He drops his shoulders, and draws his palms up in surrender, and she takes the second to dart past him, clear over the gate of the village into the surrounding forest.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

Her lungs burn with the effort to get distance, and her feet don’t stop moving until she’s burst out into the clearing of a river.

“Safe,” she mumbles to herself, shaking viscerally as she leans up against a tree.

“Safe from what, dear,” a voice drifts out from above her. The kunai she threw on instinct go right through the sleeves of white burial attire to thud into the branches.

 _He doesn’t have eyes either,_ she thinks with chill, though the cloth wrapped across his face neatly hides the cavities she’d seen on the boy from before.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t wish to,” he says, and she flinches at how long she must have been frozen in place, “so long as you’re alright.”

“How could I be _alright?!_ ” Sarada blurts out, immediately hating the way he looks struck, a ruined portrait when his pretty face crumples. _And why didn’t I get_ those _genes,_ she adds for herself, pulse slowing to something she’s at the very least used to.

“That’s fair,” he says, sounding for all the world like they’re both caught out in the snow. He falls to the ground beside her, inky hair melting down stark against his skin and clothing, “but I did mean what I said. If this was an accident, I’ll make it so you don’t need to breathe a word to any of us.”

“Oh, you’ll just ‘ _make it so,_ ’ huh,” she says darkly, but this time his lips just pull upwards.

She’s overwhelmed with the urge to wash her hands and feet, like she could wash this whole incident away, purify out the idea of practicing this cursed ritual in the first place. The river is cool when she dips her feet in. She can feel the spirit settle down next to her, even with her eyes closed in relief, and she takes in the moment he’s given her as if it’s the first time she’s ever breathed.

“So?” Sarada offers eventually, cracking open one eye to peer at him.

He hums.

“So… Sew?”

“So-so?” Sarada repeats, rapidly running out of patience for someone whose shit-eating grin proves this kind of behavior is entirely on purpose, “no, I’d actually say worse than that. By a lot.”

“Yes, yes,” he says, “but I meant _to sew_ ; it’s rather peaceful, and you do so ever _seam_ stressed.”

“I’m sure that’s what you meant,” she deadpans.

She does, however, have the travel bag she keeps packed at the front door for emergencies, and the tear she ripped into her armband is at least _something_ she can fix.

“What is all this, anyway,” she asks after she’s halfway through pulling the seam closed.

“I haven’t the slightest.”

“What.”

He has the gall to throw back his head and laugh, shoulders shaking so much he has to lean back onto his elbows to maintain the semblance of sitting upright.

“Uchiha in my day were Shinto,” he says, righting himself. She can’t even tell if he’s _actually_ sitting on the ground or just posed mid-float.

“I am-“

“And Shinto only,” he clarifies, with a wave of his hand, “whatever this is, it’s something else entirely.”

“It’s supposed to be honouring your ancestors, I think?”

He leans forward to hug his knees, resting a cheek on them.

“I _am_ feeling very honoured to meet you,” he says, looking utterly honest and equally utterly fox-like.

Sarada hums back in revenge.

“… Will I end up like that, too?”

“Bitter, or stupid?”                

The way he says it makes it seem like a real question, even though she can tell it’s all for show, and it makes her laugh. Between the river and conversation, the flow is washing the tension off her shoulders like it’s nothing more than stubborn mud.

“No _eyes,_ ” she corrects, “it seems to be a recurring theme around these parts.”

“My _God,_ I sure as hell hope not. What are they doing to you in there?!”

“In where? My house?”

He gestures at the direction of the entire village. She frowns.

“Why are you the only one out here?”

“I’m more than positive you could find Uchiha milling about if you wandered further away,” he starts, but his tone is thoughtful, and the last time she refused an adult the chance to be careful with her feelings she made her mother cry, so she waits, “though I admit, I might be the only one curious enough to lie in wait to congratulate deserters.”

“Don’t say that so cheerfully when I might as well be on probation. What’s there to be curious about botched ceremonies, anyway,” she scowls, trying to tug loose the way the last four stitches have knotted.

“This is an annual celebration, is it not? We do actually feel your love, and your compassion, and your disdain for dirty dishes.”

She snorts.

“You haven’t actually answered why you’re out here,” she points out, carefully tying off the loose threads and sliding her armband back on, “and I’m out of distractions.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“If you’re curious about how the village is doing, just _go back in,_ it’s not like we can arrest you for trespassing your old house or anything.”

“I’d actually rather not know!”

 _Childish,_ Sarada thinks, and almost says it, has sarcasm on the tip of her tongue, pointed and barbed for the kind of adult who stays willfully ignorant in favour of harassing children with cryptic statements, but. His shoulders have sunk back in on themselves, his tone clipped far too cold, and-

“You’ve never been in the village,” she says, wishing it were a question so she could swallow back her own shame.

“I haven’t.”

“I’ll show you,” she says, and darts to her feet, but the sensation of ice chills her wrist, and she looks down to see his hand phase through her skin.

“I just said I’d rather not know, didn’t I?” he chides, “besides, if you wanted to be showing dead grandpas around the marketplace, you wouldn’t have come out here in the first place.”

“That’s … true.”

He pats the ground, and she curls back down obligingly, mirroring his position.

“You look perturbed.”

“I just… don’t understand why you’d ever choose _not_ to know something?”

“You’re a curious girl,” he says, and she’s entirely unsure which way to take it, “if I’m right, it means something has gone terribly wrong, and if I’m wrong, it means I’ve made a terrible mistake. Either way, I’m much too dead to do anything about it, so I feel rather justified in squeezing my eyes shut and plugging my ears!”

Sarada scoffs.

“Then I hope you can _smell_ how annoying you are,” she says, cherishing the way he so easily melts back into laughter, “though I guess now that you’ve put it like that, there are things I don’t want to know, either.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m only out here because I’m too chicken to be an Uchiha when…” she trails off, biting into her lower lip. It’s the atmosphere that’s getting to her, like she’s shrouded in oppressive, dark clouds.

“When the weather is this bad?”

“… Yeah.”

“Grief is… difficult,” he says, willow-soft, and that’s the moment she realizes that _grief_ is what this is, ice twisting up her spine and fire in her throat, more grief and despair and regret than she’ll ever be able to understand, even if she wanted to, even if she wasn’t a child and this wasn’t an accident.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, voice coming out a croak.

“If you think you want the kind of answer I could give, it would be my pleasure.”

“Well, it’s just, I live with my mom, but she married in, and my dad’s not around much because his job is so important, so because I couldn’t ask him I went to the library, and-“ she glances up, and his head is still cocked, expression pensive and attentive, so she takes a deep breath.

“What’s so good about being an Uchiha, anyway?”

He beams.

  


\- - - - - - -

  


By the time Sarada is trying to sneak back over the wall, it’s late enough that the guards are actually paying attention, and she ends up needing Kotaro to vouch for her. He sets her loose near the station with a pat on the shoulder, and she pivots to take the rooftops home.

Only to phase right through someone.

 _You again,_ she thinks, rubbing her upper arms to shake the feeling of chill and valiantly avoiding calling him out to his face.

“You again!” He says, like he could’ve possibly missed her. He steps in close, and she has a quip ready about maintaining personal space even if he _can’t_ touch her, but she sees the other spirits inching towards her from all directions of the street and holds her tongue.

 _“Follow me,”_ he says, so far under his breath that she can barely see his mouth moving, and promptly darts back through an alley.

It’s not that she thinks the others aren’t capable of following, but the shadows he darts in and out of are so far tucked away, so strange in their pattern, that it’s probably too much of a hassle to bother for someone they don’t know anyway. She’s not even sure where they’re going until suddenly they’re out in sight of her balcony.

 _Oh,_ she thinks, and carefully avoids thinking about how he knew where she lived.

“Payback for scaring you earlier.”

“I wasn’t planning on holding it against you.”

He looks a little reassured, rocking back on his heels and clasping his hands behind his back.

“I thought you were… someone else,” he offers, “because your chakra was similar, but your voice definitely isn’t! Really am sorry, though.”

She rolls the explanation over in her mind a little, sure she already knows who he was looking for and unsure if she wants to confirm it. Her forehead protector is still warm in her hand from Izuna’s embroidery lesson, and when she brushes her thumb against the inside of the cloth material, she can feel the texture of raised thread.

“Sasuke, right?” Sarada asks, squaring her jaw, “you were looking for Sasuke?”

“Wh- I, uh- yes? Yeah, I- sorry, I didn’t mean to say you were, like, a _boy_ , I-“

“He’s my dad,” she says, feeling just on the right side of bemused, “and that kind of thing doesn’t bother me, so it’s okay if you sweat a little less about it.”

His shoulders look caught in a balancing act between relief and tension, and she cannot imagine how he managed to get through life in such blatant half-measures.

“Sasuke’s… daughter? Is he, um… ?”

“He’s alive, and also fine,” and at that he really does sag all the way forward over his knees, “but I think that I’d… maybe prefer not talking about it.”

“Yeah, okay,” he nods, but instead of getting up, he just stays waiting with his head inclined in her direction.

_That’s all you wanted to hear, right? Could you just shoo-_

“… Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you also fine?”

“I will be as soon as I blow out the lantern to send you all back,” she says dryly. He’s an anxious enough person that she expects him to flinch, or grimace, but he grins back at her with that same fox-like look that Izuna had.

“Banish away!”

She starts the walk back to her front-door, shaking her head at his antics, and not entirely shocked that he follows behind.

“Fond of stalking?”

“Hey! I’m protecting!”

“Sounds dubious.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not exactly the most popular guy to get born in the melodrama-and-murder club, so they should keep to themselves if I make myself a nuisance.”

“I resent that, you know.”

“Sorry, sorry-“

“If this was a club, I’d be able to cancel my membership.”

His laughter is the kind that feels like it’s hiccupping all the way up, like he’s moments from choking and heaving on it, arms crossed over his chest as he struggles to stay still. It makes him much easier to look at.

"Hey.”

“Hm?”

“I was just out getting some advice from a clan elder on what to do about all _this_ ,” she starts, waving her free wrist disparagingly at the crowd, “and he said I’d have better luck if I only asked a couple of people to stop by at once. What’s your professional opinion, as someone who is very clearly a cop.”

“I resent that!”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I’m most definitely and certainly using all of my years of experience to call you a con artist, bare minimum.”

“It’s a survey, not a _scam._ ”

“A survey?”

“Right. I’m going to invite a handful of people every year, skipping the part where I get mobbed by relatives God only knows how far I’m removed from, and collect their opinions.”

“What’s your investigative question, then, off-brand cop?”

“What does it mean to be an Uchiha?”

“Oh, _yuck_ , who’s getting stuck in the hot-seat?”

“A woman named Naori, and-“

“ _UCHIHA NAORI?!_ You’re going to talk to Uchiha Naori?!”

“Have you met her?”

“ _Have I-_  are you kidding? She’s like, the most famous swordsman in Konoha! She’s a _legend_. I would die for her.”

“Her old teacher says she’s nice and has very strong opinions. Also, she’s already dead, if you were trying to keep track.”

“You’re just. Gonna call up Uchiha Naori like it’s no big deal, huh. I’d hate to get stuck in the middle of that debate!”

“Oh,” she says, suddenly feeling very alone, cognizant of her own vulnerability in a way that forces acknowledgment of just how protected she had been.

“Oh?”

“No, it’s just. Nevermind.”

“No, no, c’mon, what’s wrong?”

“…I thought you might have wanted to come, is all, but it’s fine, I was in the wrong to make assumptions-“

“I’ll come! I’ll come, I’ll come,” and the way he’s waving his arms is so overblown he nearly knocks the lantern off its hanger.

“…So?”

“So… so?”

“Not this again,” she groans, “ _so,_ I need your name if I’m going to pray for your spirit next year.”

“Oh. Oh! I’m Shisui! Uchiha-“

“No, I got that part.”

“You’re a grumpy little thing, aren’t you.”

“I resent that. Go get some rest.”

“You too, Sarada!” Shisui says, bright and open.

 _Because I definitely gave you my name,_ she thinks, glowering, and he must be able to feel it, viscerally, protesting and apologizing instantaneously.

Sarada pulls a fox-grin of her own and blows the lantern out.

  


\- - - - - - -

  


The apartment feels impossibly hollow, every step an echo even when she knows the room is too small to make them. The smell of incense lingers even with the windows thrown open, and the food is still lukewarm, so she grabs the platter of summer fruits and goes back to the balcony. It will be hours more until her mother will have a chance to check in, and by then the adrenaline will probably have dissipated like smoke. The sky is still a gentle mauve, and the very first of the evening stars are beginning to flicker out across the expanse of it.

The library, so many months ago, had little to say about the Uchiha, and even less that was kind. A history of her family, void of heart, even as it spoke of an emotional weight others could never understand. Sarada remembers wishing there was more in the same breath as wanting to take it all back, prevent it from getting seared into the back of her eyelids.

In that regard, a city of ghosts was no different than usual.

 _‘But you have to live,’_ Izuna had said, with the same confidence and austerity he had when he gave her permission to eat the offerings, to send everyone away, to leave the clan behind if she couldn’t find a use for it.

_‘But you have to live, so you get to decide what it means to be an Uchiha.’_

Sarada bites down vindictively on the apple she’d been eyeing at lunch, the one she had saved because it was the good one, and she’d been taught those were for others.

Her forehead protector lays loose in her lap, clumsy lily curling shy and haunting in the upper corner, matte field thread because she hadn’t had anything nicer with her, hadn’t wanted to let the moment pass. Hadn’t wanted to miss the way Izuna had spoken, proud and sad, of the difference between using a needle to stitch, to repair, and threading a needle to _make_. A mother who embroidered so dexterous and vibrant the colours and shapes spilled out in relief, of tiny siblings who would sneak tiny animals into his sleeves while he slept.

She’ll meet her family, bit by bit, year after year, until she learns what each person thought was best about being a part of the Uchiha clan, until the flowers bloom every inch of the inside of headband she entrusts her life to. She’ll take care to learn what a book could never teach her, and refuse to take on the weight of their despair without the weightlessness of their joy to lift it.

When she’s done, Sarada will bring Izuna back into her home for sakura tea, and teach him again, from the very beginning, what it means to be an Uchiha.

  


\- - - - - - -

  


  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
